Work Text:
Everything drowns out underneath the ringing in his ears. Ash’s pleas for Clown to wait, come back. His own footsteps echoing down the corridors of the Whitepine estate. The howl of the wind and the chill that settles in his aching bones. The sound of dropping the blade repeats in his mind like sick torture.
Isolation, fear, the smell of burnt flesh. It’s all his brain processes.
He can’t be here, can’t stay here. He doesn’t dare look behind him, afraid that he’ll turn and see the bodies of those he failed, littered along the path, arms that had died outstretched, begging for his salvation.
It's not that he doesn’t believe Ash, it’s not that he doesn’t trust Ash. Deep down, he accepts no one’s there, that an old estate is bound to make weird noises, especially being so empty for once. It’s not the episode that eats away at him. It won’t be his last.
Clownpierce just… cannot trust himself, he who raised a blade against a man who has no reason to hurt him. It sickens him, disgusts him. A man who fought to protect, nearly harming someone innocent.
His legs take him to the one place he knows is safe. One person he knows is safe.
Reddoons. His brother in arms. Even if they don't talk like they did back then, he’s the only living man that has gone through the exact same thing. The only one who would forgo the pointless questions.
It’s hard to tell how long he’s been gone, not while the air is far too suffocating and heavy, not when his feet won’t stop, not when he can’t process his own movements.
He only comes back after making a familiar turn.
Yellowed light still glows from inside the shop, even long after close. Redd’s working late, and the aching tug of Clown’s burning heart thanks the stars for aligning for him.
He raps a trembling hand against the door, window inside hidden by that downright ugly curtain Redd insisted on keeping when he bought the place. It’s loud. Louder than he anticipated, and he flinches. Some war hero, old and wiser in his age, flinching because his own fist hits harder.
Inside echoes footsteps against those old, creaky wooden steps, Redd’s steel-toed work shoes landing heavy with every step down. Clown notices the curtain pulled back sharply, but doesn’t look up. He doesn’t look up when the door opens, a little bell jingling overhead.
“Clown?” Reddoons tilts his head, worry etched deep in his face. “What’re you doing–“
He shuts up, cutting himself short, noticing the shake that breaks through the facade. Expressionless mask unable to stop Clown’s body betraying him. The hunched shoulders, the balled fists, the baited and trembling breaths.
“Shit.” Reddoons whispers, immediately understanding. Wordlessly, he steps back, door open. Nothing more needs to be said, they both understand.
Clown sways slightly as he steps inside, ignoring the way he fumbles to make his way back up the stairs to Redd’s living space above the shop. Reddoons lets him, gives him the space he needs, and then follows.
The mask comes off as Clown crashes into the door of the bathroom, it clattering to the floor. His hands hit the porcelain of the toilet seat, and he retches, then hurls. He doesn’t stop throwing up as he feels Redd’s hands pull back his loose hair, nor when Redd’s hand rubs circles into his back.
They both know it’ll pass. It always does. Redd does not need to say anything, because Clown replays those soundbites time and time again.
Having spilled the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl, he leans back, chest rasping for breath. Reddoons offers him an old, but clean cloth to wipe his face, and he does. It goes into the bin afterwards without a care.
They sit there for a moment. Silence, horrible, horrible silence, engulfed by the aftershock. Clown hasn't had a moment to rest since he heard those damned footsteps. Only God knows how long ago that even was.
Clown turns, and finally breaks. He cries, tears burning his eyes and voice muffled by that damned jacket Redd still wears. Fingers grip desperately into fabric, locked and trembling, tugging his fellow soldier as close as he can.
He sobs, these are tears he hasn’t dared to let out in years. Raw, ugly. They tear at his throat and shake his body. He hasn’t had an episode in years. He thought he’d finally gotten over all of that. The fear, the paranoia, the prickling feel of malaise.
Finally, Redd asks a question that isn’t useless support.
“What set you off? It’s not been this bad in a long time."
“There was someone in there, I swear, and I just… saw them all.” Is all Clown chokes out, and he knows he hears Redd’s heart skip a beat.
Two and a half decades ago, Reddoons and Clownpierce were the only two men of their entire platoon to come out alive. An ambush, a spy on the inside, some traitor they never got to take revenge upon because he had died that night too.
Someone had rigged the place. Let it blow the moment the mole on the inside had been found out.
Clown should never have left, should never have agreed to join Reddoons in taking a trip they weren’t allowed on just out of base to see the view of the town over the horizon. They’d both naively thought it was fine. They weren’t stationed in the active warzone up north, if they were needed, they were not far.
Clown will always believe if he had stayed behind, he could have saved them. Some of them, at least. He could have saved the kid. The youngest of them, not even eighteen.
Clownpierce had heard screams and yells and had dropped everything to run back.
They hadn’t made it in time.
Bodies. Bodyparts. Smouldering ash and debris. That’s all that was left. A building left decimated. Clown left bloodied and torn up, mere feet from dying himself.
Thirty-two other members of their platoon had been murdered that night, and Clownpierce never forgave himself.
;
“The murder?” Reddoons whispers softly. He would be a liar if he said he too didn’t see the dead, those he failed, those he could have saved or died trying to save. He knows the anguish that Clownpierce keeps hidden deep down, failing people so badly again. It doesn’t burn at Redd’s skin so much anymore, and Clown envies it.
“Yeah.”
“Nobody coulda’ seen it coming. It’s not your fault.”
Clown blinks.
“I know.”
He doesn’t, not really. Logically, he tells himself that bad things happen, he is no witch, he cannot see the future. Yet, it’s his duty to protect. Every staff member of the Whitepine estate went through him, and it’s his duty to oversee them. He let Mysticat die. It’s his fault on a level he doesn’t believe Redd can understand.
Still, he isn’t judged for it. He wishes he was.
The mask lies beside them. A gift handmade by Redd, for Clown. For when he started working for the Hemlockes. Something to hide the ugly scars that break like lighting across his face.
He pushes Redd’s kindness down. Thinking too much will make him hurl again, even with nothing left to expel.
“You got any whiskey?” He asks, mouth dry. His head pounds, a heavy, hot thumping in his temples.
“I’m not letting you get drunk, Clown.” Reddoons sounds almost worried. It’s not a tone that sounds good on him. Confidence sounds better, cheek sounds better. Not… this. It reminds him of when they were young, when Reddoons woke up near every night clawing at his bedsheets.
“I’m not getting drunk, Red. Just… take the edge off it. Just until I stop shaking.”
“Not anymore. Ran out, been too busy to buy more.”
Clown hates how meek he sounds, asking for a finger of whiskey. How desperate and small and terrified he is. He’s a soldier, he’s been to war. He’s lost, he’s killed, he has stories about all of them. Yet, here he sits, legs tucked under him like a child that had a mere nightmare, shaking like he hasn’t yet built a spine. It’s weak, it’s pathetic, part of him fears that Redd sees him that way too.
It’s been five years since Redd last had an episode. They’re old now, Clownpierce has just started to let the grey wisps of his forties take over. Idly, he remembers the first time Reddoons threaded his fingers through and commented on it. ‘It’s like salt and pepper, that’s what they’re calling it anyway’. A not so subtle way of calling it cute. Still, they’re old, they have established careers, they haven’t been at war for decades. They're not the twenty-somethings with rifles in hands. Clownpierce should be over this.
He isn’t.
Instead, he lets his exhausted body lie there, forehead resting on Redd’s chest, fingers in his hair just like that time before. Soothingly carding those curls back. It reminds him of when they’d been sent home. Curled up together in the late winter, cold and terrified. They’d been nothing but boys. Clown doesn’t remember most of it, but he does remember the things he’d heard.
Every time Reddoons makes Clown’s heart beat warm and hard, he feels guilty. Sir Pyroscythe at least has power. He’s free to be a queer, even if still vaguely in secret. Clown has nothing left if he lets himself be one. Reddoons is his friend, the only one who sees the deepest parts of him, the weakest parts of him. That is all.
They can’t have this. They won’t have this. It’s been twenty years. If Reddoons wanted it, he’s a man, he’d ask. This is all they need to be, solidarity in living through war, in watching men die.
Gently, Redd entangles his fingers around the back of Clown’s head, into the curls of salt and pepper, and guides his head back. Clown’s eyes drift to the scuff marks etched into hardwood instead of Redd’s face. He knows he looks horrible. Red eyes and tear stains and those ugly scars of war that tore up his skin forever.
Redd doesn’t care, and his stare doesn’t burn with judgement. Just sorrow. Guilt. Shared experiences.
You’re beautiful, goes unsaid. A phrase uttered once. Clown’s thirty-fourth birthday. Spent in secret between the two. Threw back more alcohol than they could handle. Clown doesn’t remember much, he chooses not to. Not when the burning memory of their bodies tangled together can’t ever seem to escape his mind.
You’re beautiful, Reddoons had said, breathless and full of love that neither knew how to handle.
They never spoke of it again.
Still, Reddoons guides Clown up to his feet, and then towards the bed. Somewhere much more comfortable than the splintering floor. Clown doesn’t remember taking his shoes off, but when he looks down, it’s just his socks covering his feet.
Redd’s bed is nice. Only just big enough for the two of them. Made for late mornings and lazy evenings. And, well, aftermaths of plaguing memories.
He lets himself get tucked under Redd’s arm. Lets his head rest against the right side of Redd’s chest. Something so familiar and yet utterly terrifying.
They’ve shared beds before, but it’s never been this soft, this warm, this loving. Domesticity Clownpierce never asked for, but it’s not that he doesn’t dream for it. Whitepine is his life, it’s all he has. He isn’t a family man, nor is he meant to be. But curled up next to Reddoons in his bed, being covered in his blankets, swarmed by his scent, it’s wrong. Or… it should be. Clown hates that it feels right.
He isn’t some queer. He just has no eye for any of the maids because they’re below him. Has no eye for either of the Hemlocke daughters because it would be uncouth. He feels nothing for the butlers and the sons because he is not anything but normal.
This–this isn't normal. He and Redd are normal when they do this. There’s a reason nothing has happened with them. He isn’t some queer and he isn’t in love with Reddoons.
It’s not fear. He isn’t afraid. He’s just… not this.
Clown doesn’t flinch away from Red’s palm moving to cup the flesh of his bare cheek. He remembers when he wasn’t so afraid of touch.
“You doing okay?” Redd asks, thumb stroking over the stubble that grows.
“Talk. The silence is weird. It makes me think.” Clown murmurs. He doesn’t resist the urge to sink into it, to let the both of them pretend this is anything more.
“Mm, well. Today was long, you know? Good business lately, I’ve got projects lined up for the rest of the week at least.” Reddoons falls easily into babbling, filling the air with talk of work and the normalcy of life. He’s always been a loudmouth, and Clown likes it. It’s soothing. Grounding.
He’s not falling asleep, but zoning out isn’t so scary anymore. It’s only Redd’s voice that he hears. Soft, safe. Talking about the little things, like the dog he’d run into on a small delivery, or the flowers that girl from the busier part of town insisted on bringing him.
Things aren’t perfect, they never will be. They won’t be without Redd in Clown’s life.
This is enough for him, or so he tells himself.